The Design of Low-Cost Stand-Alone Microcontroller-Based Wireless Ultrasonic System for Process Monitoring and Analysis

Objectives Ultrasound technology is currently used in many areas, such as imaging, analysis, and process monitoring. The noninvasive implementation, nondestructive effect on the material to be applied, and low cost of the needed components give an advantage to the ultrasonic systems when compared to other methods for analysis and process monitoring studies. However, the current ultrasonic analysis setups used in the studies require additional devices such as a signal generator and oscilloscope. These devices used in the setup increase the cost, size, usage difficulty of the system and, most importantly, decrease the portability and stability. In order to prevent these disadvantages, an ultrasonic system that can work in real-time and its software are developed to be used in analysis and process monitoring without any additional devices. Methods This system was designed by using a microcontroller. The developed system is portable, has a small size, and a Bluetooth Low Energy connection. It has a battery for using standalone. Results Therefore, it can be easily used in different small and closed measurement environments such as incubators and controlled remotely. In addition, a mixture was analyzed with both the designed system and a commercial module. When the results are compared, two systems are found highly correlated (r2=1). Conclusion In this study, an embedded ultrasonic measurement system and its software are developed to be used in analysis studies, density measurements, and real-time process monitoring as a stand-alone device.